


Things That Cannot Be Scrubbed Clean

by Essie



Category: Demon's Lexicon - Sarah Rees Brennan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-07
Updated: 2011-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Essie/pseuds/Essie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick and Mae do the dishes together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things That Cannot Be Scrubbed Clean

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Characters are the property of SRB. This was created for fun, not for profit.  
> A/N: Written for Team Nick/Mae for the goblinmarket ship wars. This was betaed by my sister. (Thanks sis!) She's dyslexic, so blame me for any spelling or grammatical errors. Also, Nick is very hard to write.

Mae scrubbed at the pan, but the cheese was baked onto the damn thing. She was a little angry at the nineteen fifties Suzie-homemaker picture she presented, slaving away in the kitchen while Nick sat on the couch sharpening his sword.

Maybe not so Suzie-homemaker after all.

“You could help.” She grumbled. Nick looked up at her, his perfect features empty.

“I cooked.” He said. “One person cooks and one person cleans; that’s how it works around here, an equal division of labor.” His eyebrow rose slightly, and she thought he might be teasing her.

“How about we both work till it’s done, or I spray you.” She brandished the spray nozzle at him in what she was sure was an un-menacing way.

“You just want to get me wet so you can admire my sculpted body.” Nick moved from the couch, prowling towards her in graceful measured steps. Mae felt the mark on her neck burn as he drew nearer; her hand itched to reach up and tug at the collar of her shirt. Her airway felt constricted.

“I’m clever like that.” She said. Nick leaned closer, and the heat of his body made her skin prickle as his arm slid around her body.

He plucked a pan from the dish rack behind her and began drying.

He smirked.

“You better put them away too.” She nodded towards the pan in his hands “Drying’s much easier than washing.”

“Yes Ma’ame.” Mae wasn’t looking at his face as she was once again working on the nasty bit of cheese, but she thought he might have rolled his eyes.

“Besides,” She reasoned “I don’t know where anything goes.” This was an excellent argument, Mae felt, because it was true. This was not her house, and she shouldn’t be expected to put dishes away. The fact that it wasn’t Nick’s house either, and that they were all illegally squatting until Jaime finished with the magicians and left London or the police kicked them out was completely irrelevant.

Nick seemed to think this argument was not worth his breath, and didn’t respond. He did put the dried dish away. Mae continued scraping at the burnt bottom of the pan; the SOS pad was digging painfully into her knuckles as she dragged it across blackened surface.

“I put some leftovers away in the fridge for Alan, in case he gets back later tonight and wants to eat.” Mae said, elbow-deep in the sink. She could feel Nick tense beside her, his hands pausing briefly in their fluid swiping of the rag in his hands. “Don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll be alright. Alan’s clever. He’s very good at manipulating people to get what he wants,” Mae knew this from personal experience. “And he’s got Jaime on his side.”

“You think I’m worried.” Nick said, and Mae didn’t know if it was a question or if he was teasing her, or just stating a fact. She did know that she’d had to explain every human emotion to him in the past, even the most basic ones.

“Worry is like fear,” She said “Only it’s less immediate. When you worry, you keep thinking about something happening, or not happening and you can’t help thinking it might go wrong. Sometimes it can even make you feel sick. You can worry about an event or a person. I worry about Jaime, all the time. I think of him surrounded by all those powerful magicians, and I think of all the things they could do to him, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to him, and I know there’s nothing I can do about it, but I can’t stop thinking about it anyways.” Mae paused to take a breath, not sure her rambling explanation made all that much sense “So, that’s worry.” She concluded.

“Thanks,” said Nick “I get it now.”

Mae looked at him, dark and perfect, stumbling around humanity trying to figure out what they were talking about all the time, trying to be part of the conversation, and not quite managing it. He was worried about his brother, and he didn’t even know what worry meant. She felt a pang in her heart for him, this angry boy who didn’t know how to say he was worried about someone, or that he missed them, didn’t know how to say he was scared, even when he was. It made Mae wonder what else Nick felt but didn’t know the words to say.

“I love you.” The words tumbled out of her mouth without asking her permission, and Mae’s clapped her hands over her mouth, shocked and humiliated.

Nick never felt embarrassed, she remembered. He didn’t know how.

“Why did you say that?” Nick snarled, spinning on her. The glass in his hand shattered.

“You don’t have to say anything back!” She said quickly, mind still reeling from her confession.

Nick grabbed her by the shoulders, and pulled her body into him, like she was a rag doll. She stumbled a few steps, feet crunching over broken glass. His eyes were black and unforgiving, teeth bared in a snarl. He slid his hand over her shoulder, and across her neck and collar bone, the flat of his palm searing her skin, where it rested over the scar tissue.

“I can do whatever I like.” He said voice low and dangerous “I can make you do whatever I like. I can make you think I’m the greatest creature in all of creation. I can make you forget you ever had a brother, Jaime. I can make you hike your skirt up, and bend your body over the couch for me. I can make you think it was your idea.”

Mae wrenched herself out of Nick’s grasp, and scurried back a few feet. Nick let her go.

“You wouldn’t do that.” Her voice was sure and strong, but she was breathing hard.

“How do you know that?” He spat back “The mark does anything I want.” His eyes narrowed slightly “There are things that I want.”

Mae didn’t see why they were having this conversation now. She told him she loved him, not offered him her body to ravage. It wasn’t as though Nick wanted to be loved. The beginnings of terrible thought formed in her mind, and she hoped she was wrong.

“Nick,” She began, taking a step closer to him, not bothering to avoid the broken glass on the tile floor beneath them, “Why did you kiss me on the roof and on the stairway that one night?”

Nick stared at her blankly. She thought he might be thinking that she was an incomprehensible human, asking silly unrelated human questions.

“Please, just answer me. It’s important.” She looked him straight in the eye.

“Because I wanted to,” He responded simply. Mae’s heart dropped a couple spaces in her chest.

“Was it because you knew Alan liked me and you wanted to hurt him?” She pushed on.

“I never want to hurt Alan.” Nick said simply, and he never lied. Mae recoiled, all the pieces adjusting themselves in her head to form a different image. She felt stupid and a little sick. It was like finding a pair of boots on the clearance rack after you’d spent all your savings to buy them for full sticker price, nonrefundable. Only it was much worse than that.

“You like me!” She pointed an accusing finger at him.

“I told you I did,” He said, and he had told her, but she hadn’t been listening, hadn’t thought he’d meant it like that. Of course he’d meant it, she thought, Nick meant everything he said.

Either he wanted her to love him, and she would never know if he was making her feel the way she did, or he didn’t want her to love him, in which case she wouldn’t want to be with him anyways. It was a terrible catch 22.

Mae thought back to the night she’d asked him to mark her. She remembered how scared she had been; she remembered calling him just to have him there, because she felt better when he was around. Then he’d arrived, and she’d thought it would be stupid to just ask him to stay, thought she’d have to give him something useful to do, in order to justify his presence. Now, she wished she’d just asked him to hold her through the night.

“There’s no way to fix this.” She said at last.

“No.” Nick replied.

“Just, forget what I said then.” She told him.

“Okay.” Nick went to get a broom, and Mae turned back to the dirty pan. It was no use scrubbing. The stuff was burnt on there forever. She would have to throw it away.


End file.
